“Ah, you’re sweet.”
“I’m not talking about you.”
“And I wasn’t remotely serious, so sheathe those fangs, big boy. Is the love of your life a he or a she?”
“She.”
“She’s got a smell, right? A special smell. Not just the smell of her skin, but the way her skin smells when she’s flushed and ready for you, beckoning to you. It’s a smell that makes you feel like you’re in her arms no matter where you are when you smell it.”
“I suppose so.”
“If that candle was meant for you, that’s what it would smell like to you. Only none of these candles are meant for you, because you’re already with the love of your life. Or at least it sounds like it. But if you weren’t, and the love of your life was in your life, but you weren’t man enough to step up and try to make a move, or you had a hundred excuses why it wasn’t going to work and you shouldn’t even try, eventually, you might find yourself here, smelling her smell in one of those candles.”
“I see.”
“Do you? Or are you just humoring me? I’m not really sure how to handle skepticism from a vampire, so you’ll have to bear with me for a second.”
“I’ve got a question. If there isn’t a candle for me here, why’d this place appear to me at all?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe the guy who runs it wanted me to help you. Maybe that’s why I wound up in this courtyard right as you were attacked.”
His words gave a tense set to her jaw. “Let’s stop speculating and get back to the business at hand.”
“Fine. You going to tell me what’s in that fancy case of yours, or am I going to have to open it and see for myself?”
She saw no reason to lie. After all, as he’d pointed out, they shared a common problem tonight. Namely, both of them being revealed to the world as something other than human. She lifted the glossy leather briefcase and flipped the jeweled locks open. Holding the open case in her arms, she presented the contents to him.
He strode over to look at the half-dozen glowing jars, nestled safe in their cushioned sleeves inside the case. Their illumination seemed to startle the large warrior. He drew back, as wary as any solar-allergic being should be.
“Is that light captured inside them?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She glanced at the soft hues that burned like colored embers in the jars. “They hold the pure essence of true desire. That’s a force even more powerful than light. More powerful than most anything in this world, or the next.”
He swiveled his head and took in the scores of candles that surrounded them. “And your friend who runs this shop. How does he fit into the equation?”
“He’s not my friend.” Her jaw stiffened. “As for what he does, that’s a long story. And one best saved for another time.”
The unconscious man slouched in the chair across the room was beginning to rouse.
“I’ll just say this. I’ve got a little business I run that supplies him with what he needs to run his place. All my customers walk away happy. Most of his do too.”
“Most, huh?”
“Like I said, long story.”
Lucan cursed under his breath. “Long story or not, before this is all over tonight, you will tell me.”
She inclined her head, observing as he stalked toward the unconscious human and hoisted the man upright in the wooden chair. The man’s head lolled before finally facing Lucan. As soon as his bleary eyes opened, the human sucked in air and practically leapt off his seat in terror.
“Oh, God, no. I thought it was a nightmare.”
“That’s all it is,” Lucan said, placing his palm against the man’s sweaty brow. “A bad dream. Relax now.”
The human complied immediately.
His trembling ceased, along with his panicked stammering.
“What are you doing?” she asked, setting her briefcase down to draw up beside the vampire.
“I tranced him. He’ll tell us everything we ask.” Lucan turned his attention back on the calmed human. “You can start with your name.”
“Danny Boudreaux.”
Lucan glanced her way and she shrugged, signaling that the name meant nothing to her.
“What about your friend in the van, Danny? What’s his name?”
“I dunno. My friend Ricky—he knows him, not me.”
“Ricky is the other guy you were with tonight?”
Danny nodded.
“And what did Ricky tell you about the man with the camera?”
“He said the dude was offerin’ us fifty bucks to come with him and jump this lady he’s been watchin’ for a couple of months. Said he wanted to see what would happen if we got her good and pissed off.”
“You succeeded,” she muttered.
“There was supposed to be an extra hundred in it for us if we could grab the bitch’s briefcase away from her.”
“A lousy hundred dollars,” she said. “You don’t have the first idea what’s in these jars or what to do with it. And you’d spend the rest of your miserable life trying to figure it out.”
Lucan slanted her a look. “I don’t think it mattered to anyone what was inside it. The man with the camera knew the briefcase was important to you. He only wanted to test your reaction to the theft. He’s been watching you long enough to know your habits, where to find you.”
“What for? Just to make a feeble attempt to mug me?”
His face turned grim. “So he could capture the altercation on video. More specifically, your reaction.”
She arched a brow as a cold understanding settled on her. “Because whoever’s been watching me knew my reaction would be something more than human.”
He nodded. “And now he has both of us on video during the attack.”
“We need to get that camera.”
“The man who hired you, Danny. Do you know where we can find him?”
The human shook his head, his eyes closed, his mind still caught in the web of the trance. “I don’t know anything else. Ricky set it all up.”
Danny slumped and a cell phone screeched with a heavy metal ringtone. The grating noise filled the shop, although it didn’t seem to register with the dazed human at all. Lucan rifled through Danny’s pockets and found the bleating phone.
“Jackpot.”
He held the phone up, showing her the name on the screen.
Ricky.
He pushed the call to voice mail, silencing the racket. “We have everything we need now. I’ve got a plan.”
She pointed at Danny. “What are you going to do with him?”
He smirked. “Mind-scrub the little fuck, then toss him back in the gutter. When he comes to again in the morning, he’ll have one wicked hangover, but he won’t remember a thing that happened.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Not a thing.”
She walked over and punched the human in the face.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Much. Let’s hear your plan, vampire.”
AFTER DUMPING DANNY IN A side alley a few blocks away from the candle shop, Lucan and Lilliane hailed a taxi and headed to the Bywater to find one Richard “Ricky” Dubois.
A quick call to Gideon, the Order’s resident computer genius at the Boston headquarters, had been all it took to gather a full dossier on Danny’s erstwhile partner in crime. The GPS tracer Gideon placed on Ricky’s cell-phone signal now led them straight to the small-time thief’s location outside a seedy bar down at the river. The place was packed, never mind that it was also dank and dilapidated, a squat redbrick eyesore sitting about as far off the tourist maps as you could get.
Lucan didn’t have to guess which of the huddled, drowned rats smoking blunts under the tattered awning at the bar’s entrance across the street was the human he needed to find. He could still picture Ricky’s slack-jawed stare from earlier tonight. Judging from the way he weaved and swayed on his feet, Ricky had been trying to take the edge off his tattered nerves. Better that he ended up here instead of running to the police station with his eyewitness account of paranormal happenings. Although, given Ricky Dubois’s rap sheet, Lucan doubted he would ever approach the authorities on a voluntary basis.